David Marcus, the former head of Meta’s crypto and digital finance operations, has unveiled his new entrepreneurial foray into the Bitcoin ecosystem. David Marcus Launches Lightspark In a Twitter thread, Marcus announced that he is starting a new company called Lightspark, a crypto payments system designed to make Bitcoin transactions faster and cheaper. Marcus raised roughly $175 million in venture capital funding for the new company, according to Bloomberg. VC firms Andreessen Horowitz and Paradigm are co-leading the round with participation from Thrive Capital, Coatue, Felix Capital, Ribbit Capital, Matrix Partners and Zeev Ventures. “I wanted to share that we are starting a new company called Lightspark to explore, build and extend the capabilities and utility of Bitcoin. As a first step, we’re actively assembling a team to dive deeper into the Lightning Network,” said Marcus in a tweet. Downturns are good moments to focus on building and creating value with mission-aligned people. We’re excited to dive into Lightning, learn more, and work alongside the community. We’ll share more about our work as we make progress! (3/3) — David Marcus (@davidmarcus) May 12, 2022 Other Ex-Meta Employees Also Part of the Team In addition to Marcus, other members of the team include James Everingham, who was previously a vice president of engineering at Facebook’s Novi. Christian Catalini, who built Diem with Marcus, will be charged with le...
